14:38Classic TV · 1977Bonanza Cast Then and Now: Who's Still Alive?
Episode: Bonanza (1959): Cast Then & Now 2026 — Every Single Cartwright Is Gone
From Hollywood Legends Era · 21 min ·
About the Bonanza Cast Then and Now
The Bonanza cast then and now is the story of the Cartwrights of the Ponderosa and the people who brought them to life. The NBC western premiered on September 12, 1959, and ran for 14 seasons and 431 episodes, ending on January 16, 1973.
It began on Saturday nights, moved to Sundays in its third season, and spent its final season on Tuesdays.
This episode looks at twelve people from the show. As of October 2026, ten of them have passed away. All of the main Cartwrights are gone, and two cast members are still with us.
Who Played the Cartwrights, and What Happened to Them?
Lorne Greene as Ben Cartwright
Lorne Greene was born Lyon Himan Green in Ottawa on February 12, 1915. During World War II he was the principal newsreader on CBC's national news. His deep delivery of grim war news earned him the nickname "The Voice of Doom."
In his radio days he invented a stopwatch that counted backward to zero, so announcers could see how much time they had left. His Bonanza role came after he played O'Brien in a 1953 TV production of Nineteen Eighty-Four.
He signed to play Ben once more in the revival film Bonanza: The Next Generation, which also cast his daughter Gillian and Michael Landon's son. He died shortly before production began, on September 11, 1987, at 72, of complications of pneumonia following ulcer surgery.
Pernell Roberts as Adam Cartwright
Pernell Roberts played the oldest son, Adam, for six seasons. He left after the 1964–65 season. He had criticized the show's simple stories and its lack of minority actors, and he pressed NBC not to cast white actors in non-white roles.
In March 1965 he joined the Selma to Montgomery march alongside Martin Luther King Jr. He found his second great success as the star of Trapper John, M.D. from 1979 to 1986.
His son died in a motorcycle accident in 1989. Roberts outlived all of his Bonanza co-stars and died of pancreatic cancer in Malibu on January 24, 2010, at age 81.
Dan Blocker as Hoss Cartwright
Dan Blocker was born Bobby Dan Davis Blocker in De Kalb, Texas, on December 10, 1928. He served as an infantry sergeant in the Korean War and received the Purple Heart. He married Dolphia Parker in 1952, and they had four children.
On May 13, 1972, he died at age 43 of a pulmonary embolism following gallbladder surgery. Director Robert Altman, a friend from Bonanza, had cast him in The Long Goodbye. Sterling Hayden took the part, and the film was dedicated to Blocker.
The show went on for one more season without him, bringing back Candy and adding a new ranch hand, but it was cancelled after 16 episodes.
Michael Landon as Little Joe Cartwright
Michael Landon was born Eugene Maurice Orowitz on October 31, 1936, in Queens, New York, and grew up in Collingswood, New Jersey, where his was one of two Jewish families in town. He chose the name Landon from a telephone book.
His childhood was painful. His mother attempted suicide more than once, and on a beach trip he rescued her from the water. He wet the bed, and his mother hung the sheets out his window, so he ran home every day to take them down before classmates saw. He later wrote, produced and directed The Loneliest Runner (1976), a TV movie drawn from that experience.
He was 22 when Bonanza began. He went on to star in and produce Little House on the Prairie. Michael Landon died of pancreatic cancer in Malibu on July 1, 1991, at age 54.
Guy Williams as Will Cartwright
Guy Williams, born Armando Joseph Catalano in New York in 1924, was already famous as Disney's Zorro. In 1964 he joined Bonanza as Ben's nephew, Will, meant to replace Adam. When Pernell Roberts stayed one more season, Williams was written out after five episodes. He then starred in Lost in Space.
Zorro was a hit in Argentina, and he later settled in Buenos Aires. He was found in his apartment there on May 6, 1989, after a ruptured brain aneurysm. He was 65. His ashes were placed in the Argentine Actors' Association mausoleum, and in 1991 his son Steve scattered them in the mountains of Southern California and in the Pacific off Malibu.
David Canary as Candy Canaday
David Canary, born in Elwood, Indiana, in 1938, earned a music degree from the University of Cincinnati. He joined Bonanza in 1967 as ranch foreman Candy, left in 1970 after a contract dispute, and returned in 1972 after Dan Blocker's death.
His greatest success was playing twin brothers Adam and Stuart Chandler on All My Children, earning five Daytime Emmy Awards. Diagnosed with dementia years earlier, he died in Wilton, Connecticut, on November 16, 2015, at 77.
Mitch Vogel as Jamie Hunter Cartwright
Mitch Vogel was born in Alhambra, California, on January 17, 1956, and began acting on stage at age 10. In 1968 he played one of the children in Yours, Mine and Ours.
Around age 14, he joined Bonanza as Jamie Hunter, an orphan the Cartwrights took in and adopted. He left acting in 1978 to pursue music, married Christine Gilles in 1985. He is 70.
Tim Matheson as Griff King
Tim Matheson, born in Glendale, California, on December 31, 1947, voiced Jonny Quest as a teenager. In Yours, Mine and Ours he played the oldest son, which means he and Mitch Vogel were screen siblings before they ever reached the Ponderosa.
In the final season, he played Griff King, a parolee working on the ranch under Ben's watch. In 1978 he became Otter in National Lampoon's Animal House. He earned two Emmy nominations as Vice President John Hoynes on The West Wing and has played Doc Mullins on Netflix's Virgin River since 2019. He is 78.
The Supporting Players Who Made Virginia City Feel Real
Victor Sen Yung as Hop Sing
Victor Sen Yung, born in San Francisco in 1915, played Charlie Chan's "Number Two Son" in films before cooking for the Cartwrights in more than 100 episodes. In 1972 he survived a hijacking, shot in the back when the FBI stormed the plane.
His body was found at his North Hollywood home on November 9, 1980. Police ruled his death an accident, caused by a gas leak while he was curing clay pottery in an oven. He was 65. Pernell Roberts gave the eulogy and paid for the funeral.
Ray Teal as Sheriff Roy Coffee
Ray Teal, born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1902, worked his way through UCLA as a saxophone-playing bandleader. He appeared in more than 300 films and TV shows, including Ace in the Hole and Judgment at Nuremberg. He played Virginia City's sheriff from 1960 to 1972 and died in Santa Monica on April 2, 1976, at 74.
Bing Russell as Deputy Clem Foster
Bing Russell grew up in Vermont around the New York Yankees, and according to family accounts Lou Gehrig gave him a bat from his final home run. He played Deputy Clem Foster for more than a decade.
From 1973 to 1977 he owned the Portland Mavericks, the only independent team in their league. He held open tryouts, hired the first woman general manager in professional baseball, and set a minor league attendance record. His son is actor Kurt Russell. Bing Russell died in Thousand Oaks, California, on April 8, 2003, at 76.
Lou Frizzell as Dusty Rhodes
Before acting, Lou Frizzell was a music and drama teacher at the Manzanar camp, where Japanese Americans were held during World War II. He led the choir and band, and a 2005 documentary, The Music Man of Manzanar, records his former students' affection for him.
He later played the bus driver in Steven Spielberg's Duel (1971), Dusty Rhodes on Bonanza, and himself in Farewell to Manzanar (1976). He died of lung cancer in Los Angeles on June 17, 1979.
Why Bonanza Still Rides On
Bonanza gave viewers a family that faced trouble together, and for many Americans it became a Sunday-night ritual. The people behind it carried real lives of loss, conviction and kindness, from Selma to Manzanar.
Which Cartwright did you want to ride beside when you watched the Ponderosa map burst into flame?
Sources and Further Reading
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